Bass sounds better with headphones

[Chrisda4]

I wasn't sure wether to post this in amps, live sound or technique, but anyway,

I have a Fender Jazz bass with rotosound steel strings and a Laney Richter (or is it Richter Laney?) 30 watt practice amp. The thing is, when I plug my headphones into the amp, it seems to get a more crunchy, gritty, maybe even a distorted sound. I (personally) think this sound is awesome, but I've been trying to figure out why that is and how to get the sound without the headphones.

My amp settings are:

Gain: 3
Bass: 8
Mid: 8
Treble: 8
Volume: 4

Compressor is on, but it doesn't seem to change the sound.

I've figured out that it gets less "crunchy" when I turn down the mids and/or treble.

Any help here?

Edit: And another thing, I tend to play very agressively, I clank a lot when unplugged

[oldcatfish]

I'm not familiar with the amp you have. But, if it sounds much better through the headphone out, it's the speaker or headphones that are coloring the sound. It sounds like the speaker might not have enough breakup for your taste. There are a few things you can do, but none are really worth doing for a practice amp:
1) add a distortion pedal and graphic eq when playing through the speaker. This will take a lot of trial and error.
2) plug your headphone out into a powered PA speaker. If it doesn't sound much different than your bass speaker, then it's the headphones.
3) if you determine that it's the speaker, you could replace it.

[R. Laevinus]

...or you could turn up the gain...

[oldcatfish]

Yea, I skipped the obvious turning up the gain. I assumed that he tried that already.

[curlyback]

I have a Hartke A25 combo.
It is 25 watts and has the same issue.
I think the speaker is not good enough to deliver all the punchness and detail.
Probably this is common with small practice amps.

[steve_rolfeca]

Originally Posted by curlyback

I have a Hartke A25 combo.
It is 25 watts and has the same issue.
I think the speaker is not good enough to deliver all the punchness and detail.
Probably this is common with small practice amps.

The OP's headphones may be farting out when he hits them with a real bass, instead of MP3's.

Another possibility, is that the headphone out on the Laney is underpowered. The OP mentions that he's plucking hard, and practice amps don't generally have a separate headphone volume control. He might be hitting the front end hard enough to get the headphone output clipping, but not hard enough to overdrive the power amp and speaker.

After all, manufacturers don't generally throw a ton of money at the headphone circuit on a practice amp. If that's the case, cranking the gain and lowering the output volume will get more distortion to the speaker, but it might not have exactly the same type of buzz that the OP was hearing through his headphones...

[Ric5]

If you like the sound of the headphones better then play through the headphones.

[NGJBeaner]

i would go with gain. turn that up. if the volume is too much back off the eq